PIERSON, JOHN HOGUE

PIERSON, JOHN HOGUE (1817–1867). John Hogue Pierson, pioneer and soldier, was born on April 17, 1817, in what is now Union County, Kentucky, one of three children of Purity Ruffin (Pennington) and John Goodloe Warren Pierson. In 1818 Pierson moved with his parents to the Red River area of Texas; in 1830 they moved to Nacogdoches. In October 1831 he joined Stephen F. Austin's colony, and about 1834 he moved with his father to the Nashville colony (Robertson's colony), where on February 25, 1835, he received title to 1,107 acres of land in what is now Falls County. After the formation of the corps of Texas Rangers on October 17, 1835, by the Committee of Five at the Consultation, Pierson served in Daniel Boone Friar's company of rangers for three months, protecting the settlers from Indian raids between the Brazos and Colorado rivers. During the Texas Revolution, John Hogue Pierson served for three months in Capt. John Goodloe Warren Pierson's company of cavalry in the revolutionary army, under the command of Gen. Thomas Jefferson Green. For his service, he received 320 acres of land by a special act of the Texas legislature on February 15, 1860. On August 22, 1836, he was severely wounded in a battle with Comanches at Coleto Creek near Victoria, Texas. Being permanently disabled from his wounds, Pierson received title from the Republic of Texas to 4,280 acres of land on May 3, 1838. He was married to Nancy Hutchinson, a daughter of William and Sarah (Park) Hutchinson of South Carolina, on October 8, 1838, by Jessie Grimes, chief justice of Montgomery County, Texas. They had five children.

With the start of the Mexican War in 1846, Pierson served briefly in John C. Hays's First Regiment, Texas Mounted Riflemen, Company B, under Capt. Christopher B. Aclin and Walter P. Lane. Pierson settled in Douglass, Nacogdoches County, Texas, in the 1840s, becoming the postmaster at Douglass on April 28, 1848. In 1851 Pierson moved his family to Falls County, where he raised livestock on land inherited from his father. He also operated a general merchandise store in Marlin for several years. He became a county commissioner of Falls County in 1852 and was appointed on April 9, 1853, as agent and attorney-in-fact by the Falls County Commissioners Court to obtain from Thomas Jefferson Chambers 640 acres for the townsite of Marlin. Pierson, with six other masons, organized Masonic Lodge No. 152 in Marlin on April 25, 1854. After the secession of Texas from the Union, Pierson enlisted in Company A of Terry's Texas Rangers (the Eighth Texas Cavalry) in September 1861 at Marlin. Suffering from wounds received in 1836, he received a disability discharge on February 26, 1862, at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, from Captain Rufus Y. King, commander of Company A. In February 1867 Pierson moved his family to land that he had purchased in 1865; it was located on the Leon River in Hamilton County. He died in Hamilton County on June 9, 1867, and was buried at the Hamilton and Graves-Gentrey Cemetery at Hamilton, Texas. His wife, as the widow of a Texas Revolution veteran, received from the state of Texas on October 2, 1881, title to 1,280 acres of land.

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